ON INSECT SOUNDS. 



#M Bimei ^mwU. 



By H. E. FRIPP, M.D. 



AN amusing chapter on " The noises of Insects " in the second 

 volume of the Treatise on Entomology and Natural History 

 of Insects by Messrs. Kirby and S pence, commences with a 

 paragraph which I here quote, as a fitting introduction to the 

 observations which I have to offer on this subject. 



" That insects, though they fill the air with a variety of sounds, 

 have no voice, may seem to you a paradox, and you may be tempted 

 to exclaim with the Roman naturaHst, ' What, amidst this incessant 

 diurnal hum of bees ; this evening boom of beetles ; this nocturnal 

 buzz of gnats ; this merry chirp of crickets and grasshoppers ; this 

 deafening drum of cicadae, have insects no voice?' If bv voice we 

 understand sounds produced by the air expelled from lungs, which, 

 passing through the larynx, is modified by the tongue and emitted 

 from the mouth — it is even so. For no insect like the larger 

 animals uses its mouth for utterance of any kind: in this respect 

 they are all perfectly mute, and though incessantly noisy, are 

 everlastingly silent. Of this fact the Stagyrite was not ignorant, 

 since, denying them a voice, he attributes the sounds emitted by 

 insects to another cause. But if we feel disposed to give a larger 

 extent to this word ■ if we are of opinion that all sounds however 



